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Boundary Waters Quetico Forum :: BWCA Food and Recipes :: Food you don't need dishes for?
 
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boonie
11/10/2016 01:54PM
  
There are many, many meals you can make and rehydrate in baggies, i.e. freezer bag cooking. I never use dishes - just a spoon, mug for coffee, cozy to put the baggie in to keep food warm while it rehydrates, and a pot to boil water. I mostly eat cold cereal for breakfast these days - muesli or granola. I eat ProBars for lunch, nuts for snacks. I just rehydrate meals in a baggie for dinner. The only thing I ever need to clean is the spoon and a quick rinse of the mug. Besides a minute or two to heat water, there is no prep other than waiting 10-15 minutes for it to rehydrate. Dinners range from beef stew, chili, lentils, and beans to various curries and pasta dishes, but there is a very broad range of meals that can be made or purchased to prepare this way. It also requires very little fuel to boil water vs. cooking things for 10-15 minutes. There are also summer sausages, cheese, jerky, nut butters, flatbreads, granola bars, etc.
 
housty9
11/10/2016 10:55AM
  
Looking for ideas for solo tripping to get rid of most of my cook kit, to help save time, any thoughts would be helpful.
 
hooky
11/10/2016 08:52PM
  
What boonie said.
 
OBX2Kayak
11/10/2016 10:28PM
  
quote boonie: "There are many, many meals you can make and rehydrate in baggies, i.e. freezer bag cooking. I never use dishes - just a spoon, mug for coffee, cozy to put the baggie in to keep food warm while it rehydrates, and a pot to boil water. I mostly eat cold cereal for breakfast these days - muesli or granola. I eat ProBars for lunch, nuts for snacks. I just rehydrate meals in a baggie for dinner. The only thing I ever need to clean is the spoon and a quick rinse of the mug. Besides a minute or two to heat water, there is no prep other than waiting 10-15 minutes for it to rehydrate. Dinners range from beef stew, chili, lentils, and beans to various curries and pasta dishes, but there is a very broad range of meals that can be made or purchased to prepare this way. It also requires very little fuel to boil water vs. cooking things for 10-15 minutes. There are also summer sausages, cheese, jerky, nut butters, flatbreads, granola bars, etc. "


+1 FBC is my preferred method of cooking.
 
housty9
01/03/2017 02:00PM
  
Probars seem a little spendy, has to be cheaper options.
 
boonie
01/04/2017 03:37PM
  
Mark-


It's been a while since I've really looked for other options, but the problem was most bars that cost half as much only about half as many calories. I can usually find them for sale for about $2 a bar (~380 cal.). Clif bars would probably be your other best option in a ready-made bar. I think they have 225 - 240 (?) cal. and it's been quite a while since I bought one, but maybe ~$1 ?


Otherwise, you might just eat candy bars or gorp, or possibly find a recipe to make your own.
 
ducks
11/18/2016 07:43AM
  
excellent! thanks guys
 
GoSpursGo
11/17/2016 10:06AM
  
I believe hes talking about these - I havent tried all of the ProBar Meal varieties, but I like this one so far
 
boonie
11/17/2016 11:11AM
  
quote GoSpursGo: "I believe hes talking about these - I havent tried all of the ProBar Meal varieties, but I like this one so far "


Yeah, I usually have to buy them online and those are a couple of them. Here's a link to the ProBar website, ducks. I think I've tried all of them (10-12?) and they are all OK for me, but I like the PB/chocolate chip, chocolate coconut, koka moka, wholeberry, almond crunch the best. You might want to get a variety pack first to try them all and go from there. They are definitely moister than Clif bars to start with, but I haven't had any great problem with melting other than a little with the chocolate on a really warm day, but nothing unmanageable at all. I usually carry my day's lunch (ProBar) and snacks (nuts/dried fruit) in my pocket to eat during the day. The snack bag is 3 ounces of nuts and 1 ounce of dried fruit, so the ProBar/nuts combo is about 1,000 calories.
 
housty9
12/27/2016 08:00AM
  
Thanks for all the tips on food, this will give me a few more options to lighten up.
 
FOG51
12/28/2016 01:33AM
  
Hey Mark I think the main meals are covered but I thought I'd throw in a snack item....Goldfish snack crackers thingys. In the orginal bag they are a little bulky but in a zip lock bag they will fit into a lot of odd shaped spaces in a pack, if they get sort of broken up then you have Goldfish "scales". I usually buy a couple of different flavors then mix them together and take part of a bag. Just my suggestion. FRED
 
IceColdGold
01/18/2017 05:29PM
  
Clif bars are about a $1 each in 6 or 12 packs at Walmart.
 
hooky
01/06/2017 11:11PM
  
Wise Food is running a buy 3 get 1 free special right now. It looks like it applies to single packs all the way up to buckets (and pallets). I've bought from them in the past and I think it tastes as good, if not better than Mountain House.


Code B3G1F at Checkout
 
hooky
11/14/2016 05:32PM
  
quote buz: "Tortilla shells are a great made to eat plate. Personally, i love them with peanut buter and honey for lunch or bfast. So many ways to use them."


Along those lines, pita bread is excellent too. I make pita pizza pockets. Tear the pita in half and stuff the smaller of two inside the larger one. String cheese will keep for an entire trip and it goes on the bottom of the pita pocket. In a freezer bag, rehydrate sauce that was originally simmered with lots of onion, garlic and mushrooms and put it into the pita along with pepperoni. Chow down and toss the sauce bag into the gallon ziploc "trash bag".
 
ducks
11/15/2016 11:21AM
  
For breakfast I have a clif bar and/or Crapola granola (made in Ely). I split the granola up into ziplock baggies for each morning and eat it out of the baggie.


For lunches I snack on a few things throughout the afternoon... tuna pouch and eat it out of the pouch, beef jerky, freeze dried fruit, trail mix. I always have a couple of clif bars in my pdf pocket so I can grab a snack while paddling when needed.


For suppers I do the dump boiled water in a bag meals. I like Camp Chow.


I've seen enough people suggest probars that I plan on giving those a try.
 
boonie
11/15/2016 10:30PM
  
ducks-


There are different kinds of ProBars; when I talk about the ProBars, I mean the Meal replacement bars. I like them because they have about 380 calories per bar vs. half that for the average food bar. The normal bars just aren't enough calories and I'm not a big eater. They also have good texture, flavor, and moistness.
 
boonie
11/15/2016 10:38PM
  
ducks -
I forgot to mention that ProBars are about 3 ounces net weight, so they have good caloric density (calories per ounce).
 
ducks
11/17/2016 07:23AM
  
Hey boonie.... where do you get the "real" Probars? Yeah, the things with "probar" on the box at Target are nothing like you are explaining :)

The full size clif bars are 260 calories and I think 2.6 oz I think. Something a little more substantial would be nice and I'd also like to have a little variety.

Do the probars have a problem w/ melting if it's hot? I can even keep a cliff bar in my pants pocket on a hot summer day.
 
A1t2o
01/13/2017 08:54AM
  
Gut fish and either wrap in tinfoil and place directly on the grill or use a stick to put them up over the fire to slow cook. You can rub them with seasoning or stuff the cavity with something like rice and lime. Trout is great when wrapped and grilled, you only need a fork. I have roasted walleye and smallmouth using the stick over the fire method, we once even did that with a larger northern that we just put on the grate, the skin prevents the meat from burning as easily. I don't even take the head off when doing this, I just remove the gills and gut then scrub clean in the lake. Garlic salt and pepper is my favorite seasoning for the roasting method. We usually just pick the meat with our fingers then burn the skin and bones. It makes for a great snack after dinner because it takes a while to cook so you put it over the fire after dinner and clean up then just let it slow roast for an hour or two. Its always dark by time the fish is done and we just sit by the fire for a while to ensure nothing is left of the fish before going to bed. Make sure you clean yourself up so you don't smell before going into the tent.
 
luft
11/11/2016 09:49PM
  
I am also a huge fan of Freezer bag cooking (FBC). You can ditch large cook pots and just bring something small to boil water in. The FBC foods are lightweight too so your food pack is lighter. I thought about doing a total no cook no stove trip but I like my hot beverages too much and the non freeze dried foods were really heavy.


Some foods I like for FBC trips:


Breakfast:
Pro Bars (can be heavy) but great for a quick breakfast on travel days
Hot Grapenuts with dried fruit, nuts, powdered Nido (kind of bulky)
Instant Oatmeal (lighter and less bulky than the above two items)


Lunch:
(I usually traveling so I do snack foods on travel days and more messy foil pouch meats and crackers on basecamp days)
Nuts
Dried fruits
GORP mixes
Lara or Kind bars
Dried salami type meats
Cheese
Foil pouch chicken, tuna, salmon on crackers (this is heavy and bulky so I limit the number of this type of meal.
Peanut MMs


Dinners:
Commercial or home dried meals repacked into quart freezer bags just prior to trip.

The heaviest items end up being the meat, cheese, foil pouches, power type bars and dried fruits. I carry round crackers in a repurposed Pringles container. I used to use a plastic tennis ball container but like the flat bottom of the Pringles container better.





 
quark2222
11/12/2016 04:41PM
  
I've taken complete meals made by Hormel. They are "heat and eat", and are normally supposed to be heated up in a microwave. What I do is just put them in a pot of water and boil them until the contents are hot. Then, just peel off the plastic cover and eat out of the plastic tray they come in. They have a bunch of different ones. One of my faves is the beef tips in gravy with mashed potatoes. It is really quite good. Only about 8 or 9 ounces for a no fuss hot dinner. They are oval shaped, and I would say they are about 1.25" high X 6" long X 4.5" wide, so they are not bulky. I put the tray and the peel off cover in a 6" x 9" baggie to pack it out. The only thing you have to clean is a fork.


They also have chicken dishes, other beef ones, pasta, etc. You can get them at most grocery stores. I may have seen them at Menard's too.


Tomster
 
Northwoodsman
11/12/2016 11:32PM
  
I am lactose intolerant and I find that most summer sausages that don't require refrigeration contain lactose or dairy derivatives that adversely effect me. Packit Gourmet has some nice lactose free sausages that were very high quality like venison,elk and wild boar. The best lunch that we had after 2 killer portages this past trip were venison sausage, fresh Fuji apples, dried apricots, beef jerky and Kool aid. Didn't need any dishes, we tore chunks of sausage off the stick. Sitting there enjoying this glorious feast we looked up in a tree to see a bald eagle watching us eat.




 
buz
11/14/2016 10:13AM
  
Tortilla shells are a great made to eat plate. Personally, i love them with peanut buter and honey for lunch or bfast. So many ways to use them.